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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 4 Hansard (10 April) . . Page.. 961 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

We need to get lots of people talking about this so that it is not so incredibly difficult for people to talk about it. It is difficult for adults to talk about it, but for children, who are just so much more powerless-it is totally about lacking power when children are abused-it is incredibly difficult to find a safe place to talk about what is happening to them and to feel that it is acceptable to talk about it.

That is why we need to look at things such as the SafeCare program that we had a briefing on today. It is another attempt to try to find a way to enable people to deal with this issue, instead of being afraid to deal with it. I am not saying it is the solution, and I am sure we will have more discussions about it, but it is another attempt to provide an environment in which victims of abuse can deal with it, taking into account all the other pressures on them in their living situation.

We still do not have enough counselling support for people who have been abused as children or as adults. Long-term counselling is almost impossible unless you are wealthy. For children, access to counselling is difficult and not always appropriate.

Working on ways to break the cycle of abuse involves recognising the lives of abusers. They often have their own childhood abuse, so we have to have programs that take into account the abusers. While they have to take responsibility for their actions, most of them, according to the SafeCare people, need a lot of help themselves, because they have had their own abuse situations in childhood.

We need to ensure much more cleverly and rigorously that institutions which have care of children are not going to allow abuse to occur within those institutions. We have failed in that area. In foster care, I can remember two reports over the last six years about system abuse. When we take children out of their birth family situation, they are put into situations where they are abused. There is so much work to be done. That is why, in my view, people will be marching on Sunday. That is what this march is to achieve, to answer to Mr Cornwell's letter.

This is an issue that families have to take responsibility for. Mr Cornwell says that that is what he is saying. To a point, that is true. Mrs Cross said that Mr Cornwell blames perpetrators, not the family structure. But this letter says:

What that says to me is that parents are to blame on some occasions. Why otherwise are you saying that they need to spend more time with the children? The obvious implication is that the families are responsible. To a degree that is correct, but not all the family is responsible. Sometimes it is within a family. It can also be the fact that there is an incredibly vigilant, loving parent or family member who has no idea that a child or children are being abused. There can be two or three such vigilant, caring, loving parents or family members who would have no idea.

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